Xamos

Wow all of this news are so epic. Thanks for all the hard work and passion that is flowing into the Forge! Would nominate this for all Steam awards 😄

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• Soon™

Last Community Update we revealed our upcoming new achievements and ever since we get daily questions when those (and the patch in general) will hit the live server. We are currently hard at work finalizing the upcoming patch, but aren't able to reveal a concrete release date just yet.
We expect to share more information with you regarding its release in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that. 
In the meantime, we are excited to reveal a new card today! 

• New Card Reveal: Burning Spears

Burning Spears is a new tier 2 fire unit, requiring two fire orbs. Upgrading the card reduces its power cost and increases its stats. The values noted here are for U3. It will be an Uncommon and won't have an affinity. 

Burning Spears is an S-sized squad unit that contains a weapon-switch similar to Ghost Spears. They will also have the Steadfast passive ability, meaning they can't be knocked back. 
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against large units instead of extra-large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against extra-large units instead of large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Burning Lance / Scorching Injury (passive ability)
Enemies hit by Burning Spear's attacks will be set on fire and take additional damage that steadily increases the longer they burn. The burn deals 2 damage per second and stacks up to 25 times. Attacked units may only walk at walk speed for 15 seconds.
 
Design Goals
Burning Spears are designed as a new tool to increase deck building options in pure Fire. The faction currently has a limited pool of pure cards in PvP, leading to a very M-unit centric deck design with a limited amount of deck building options and balancing levers to change specific matchup behaviors.
The addition of Burning Spears will add a versatile small sized unit into the faction, that is supposed to help with some of the factions counter issues against L and XL units in T2, while demanding a deck slot investment in return. The passive ability enables very high backloaded damage potential to punish players that try to ignore them, whereas the slow and steadfast ability allow Burning Spears to stick to their priority targets while enabling further spell synergies with cards like Wildfire.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release.
 
• Artwork Spotlight

Now that our art team has grown, we tried a different approach for our creation process. The card was already play tested, so we knew its effects and that it would use the Ghost Spears model, but there were no other hard restrictions for the art. 
Our artist Spirit Alpha worked together with Tweeto to explore some ideas, which resulted in multiple concept arts. They settled on a barbaric look. 


The next step was to visualize the design in-game, and make sure what we had in mind would actually be possible to implement, preventing a mismatch between art and model.

Once the theme, colors and general appearance were fleshed out, it was time to start working on the artwork. Different compositions were explored again.



 
Spirit Alpha then handed in this artwork. While we were generally happy with how this design turned out, there were still some things to be done. While the Deep One claw was a nice touch, we found it did make the artwork more cluttered and distracted the viewer's eye. With the help of Tweeto, adjustments were also made to the background, contrast and skin, left arm anatomy, right arm shape and the spear. 
 

After a couple of extra iterations (and lots of discussion about flames with our art critique), we finally settled on the current design. A big thanks to our artists Spirit Alpha and Tweeto for drawing the artwork, to Friendly Firefly for working on the ability icons and to our art critiques for their support and comments. 
As you can see, a ton of work went into this, and we haven't even showed you half of the iterations. 
We are very happy with how it turned out, and hope you like it as well!
 
• Upcoming PvP changes

While PvP has a very passionate community, the game mode currently has certain flaws that prevent players from getting into it. We hope to tackle these in our upcoming patch. Here are some of the changes we will implement:

Queue will drain the BFP reserve
PvP often enters a "Spiral of Death" when too few players are online. It takes too long to find a match, so players stop queuing, which results in it taking longer to find a match... We want to give players an incentive to wait in the ranked lobby for more than a few minutes, resulting in the lobby no longer being empty and the next person who wants to play finding an opponent quickly. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 

Hide Player Names
We have seen that some players tend to dodge certain high ranked players while playing ranked, not queuing up when they see higher skilled opponents in the lobby. To prevent this behavior, we will hide player names in the ranked lobby. To not impact casual play, we have separated the sparring and ranked lobbies, allowing you to still invite players into your lobby and make things like tournaments and Toggy's Fightclub still possible.

Hide Losses
Another reason that prevents players from queuing up is the fear of messing up their win/loss ratio, or even feeling shame to have their losses publicly shown on the ladder. It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We hope this change encourages players to focus on what matters (playing the game and improving yourself) instead of stats that might not even represent your current skill level.

New Player Protection
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started, we will prevent players with <102.000 base ELO from getting matched with players at >135.000 base ELO. 

Changes to Free PvP Decks
With upcoming balance adjustments and new cards, we will update our free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. Additionally, we have made changing these decks more flexible; resulting in no longer having to reset all the free PvP decks when we make these changes.
If we update one of the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. We are currently planning to make the following changes:

Pure Nature:
+ Parasite
- Shrine of Memory

Fire/Nature
+ Twilight Minions (G)
- Ghost Spears

Pure Shadow
+ Executor
- Nightguard

Rebalanced 2vs2 Maps
While we mostly balance the game around 1vs1, we know players really enjoy 2vs2 as well. We are very happy with how our rebalanced 1vs1 maps turned out, and we want to give 2vs2 the same treatment. 

Changes include removal (or adjustments) of walls, wells, slight changes to the layout, and making certain area's immovable for flying units. This should result in a better play experience and more balanced maps. 

These maps will also have observer versions, meaning it will now be possible to host 2vs2 tournaments again! We also updated the minimaps to be accurate. 


PvP Happy Hours
A feature long in the works and finally nearing release is Happy Hours. Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. 
We have noticed PvP is currently quite scattered, with a lot of players wanting to play, but going offline again when they can't find opponents. While rewarding to queue is one incentive to have players stay online longer when the lobbies are empty, we also want to help players find opponents in general. We hope that by clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 
Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET

These times were decided upon by going over our available data and keeping different time zones in mind where possible. During Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

We hope to release all these features with our next patch, though Happy Hours is currently still in active development. We hope to finish it in time to be included as well. 

• Team Changes

We have a new teammember in Nukie, who has joined the team recently as a Global Moderator. Welcome, and thanks for your help!

• Open Positions Rework

We have made some changes to our open positions and spotlighted them in their own forum section. It is now easier than ever to see the current open positions, and we also added some extra information to each role, better showcasing what you will be doing. 

Skylords Reborn is always looking for motivated volunteers to help out the project. You can currently help out in multiple areas, ranging from artwork to development, map design and much more. 

Want to help out but don't want to join the staff? No problem! We also have positions like proofreader and map tester where you can more easily drop in and out, helping out when you have time. Lastly, we also have open-source projects and our Skylords Bounty (see below). Please take a look!

 
• Active Bounty

While we already have some nice contenders, our current Bounty to create a Spring Forge is still open. A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize, and we will reward everyone who applies with a serious attempt with a participation reward as well. View more information on Active bounties.

• OPEN - Spring Forge Bounty
Spring Forge Bounty is an opportunity for the community to have full engagement with the next upcoming Forge. This allows everyone to submit a possible design for how they would like the Forge to look! The winning design will be rewarded with a Promo Razorleaf!
A tutorial video has been provided to assist and help the community take its first steps for doing so!

• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Toggys Tome Tournament #4 17.05.22 
A midweek tournament held on Tuesday May 17th, at 18:30 CEST (Berlin time). The format will be Tome, meaning you will build your decks for this tournament out of a booster pool Toggy provide to you. Tome tournaments always result in crazy decks and cards you dont see very often, so be sure to join the action or watch the tournament on Twitch. The tournament will be played on the Testserver. More information and sign-up. 


• STREAM - Official 2p rPvE Contest#3 Last Resort - 25.05.2022 16:30 CEST
In this event, players were only allowed to use units, not spells or buildings. We will host a stream revealing the winners of this contest on Wednesday 25rd of May, 16:30 on our official twitch channel. 

• FINISHED - CCC #4
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest© on the map Mo. Players were encouraged to play as few cards as possible to complete the map. As one of the first events to not focus on speed, this resulted in some interesting strategies. As with all CCC, the more players attend, the better the prizes are, in this case resulting in a free booster for the whole community. 
 
• FINISHED - Skylords Open 14
The Skylords Open returned with a blast! We saw some of the best players battle it out, with some match results that would surprise you. You can rewatch the matches here. 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: FIRE-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until June 4th, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #22

The thing is, that going pure nature or even 3 nature currently isn´t rewarded enought by more/better card options. So by buffing the card but increasing the orb-requirements you do exactly that: reward players that want to go 3 Nature with a more powerful option.
The only bad thing is that this also means that this also influences other current decks, that don´t have any other good 2-Nature option, like Metagross mentioned 2 N 2 Shadow. But that can and should in my opinion be counterbalanced by adding a new Amii T4 ranged unit that fills that role.
(Stonekin- and Twilight-decks don´t actually need primeval watcher, as these decks have Gemeye and Skycatcher and so on)

Very nice! 
I hope to find some time to do this one 😉 
(the time frame seems to be quite small here, is there a possibility to extend it to the weekend maybe if more people agree? ^^) 
Was a bit surprised that a CCC can be that big and contain Promos as rewards *_*

Yes, they will be available for everyone. Even if you have already completed all of the maps for example, you will be asked to do it again (for example for mana wing promo).

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!
Before we dive in, please note there will be a Rookie Tournament today! More information in the event section below.


• Wasteland Terror

It has already been half a year since we first revealed the upcoming card Wasteland Terror. While originally planned to release alongside our Anniversary Patch, we underestimated the time it would take to create both a fitting in game look and its required visuals. 
However, after a lot of hard work, we have arrived at a place we are satisfied with. Wasteland Terror has become an awesome Bandit-take on the dragon model, and fires streams of sand that will lay waste to your enemies. We feel confident Wasteland Terror will make it into our upcoming content patch, and we hope you look forward to using it! 

View animation:

• New Achievements

With our next patch, we will add a couple of new achievements into the game. Those are aimed to both improve the new player experience, while also giving our more veteran players something to work towards. 
 
[ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]
First off is a recurring achievement, slightly increasing the incentive to reforge your cards:
Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)

[ Beginner Achievements ]
We found that for new players, the jump from the early game achievements to later game ones such as "complete all maps on advanced difficulty" was too steep. At the same time, the rate of card collection was too slow. To ease this transition, we have added a number of in-between-points in terms of achievements, which act as both more manageable goals to complete and more plentiful sources of early cards.

Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
Godslayer  [250 bfp]
Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
Apprentice  [1 booster]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
 
[ Veteran PvE Achievements ]
These new achievements provide a smoother transition towards ''play all maps on expert'', while also adding some unique challenges into the game.

The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

Those who complete "A Force of Nature" will be rewarded with a Promo Mana Wing! This promo is unique to this achievement and will not be available from boosters, but it will be trade-able. We hope you look forward to the challenge!
Please note: these achievements are not yet on the live server! 

 
• Upcoming Balance Update rPvE Fire 

Fire was added as an enemy faction in rPvE in our Anniversary Patch. While we are currently working on adding Nature as the next faction to fight against, we have been keeping a close eye on the balance and player experience against Fire among all skill levels. With our next content patch, we will be making some changes to improve the experience. 


New Building: Flame Crystal
• Spawns in Lvl. 4 and Lvl. 5 camps*
• Will periodically remove debuffs and cc effects from allied units
Fire can be extremely strong, but due to its high attack and low defense, it is extra vulnerable to Crowd Control spells. We want to counter this weakness with a brand-new building, while at the same time making changes to some of its more oppressive tools. 
View animation:
Abaddon:
• Damage: Decreased

Brannoc:
• Fire Sphere damage reduced

Aspect of Summer
• No longer prevents Ice Shields from being applied

Fiend of Fire
• Flame Breath: damage reduced

Spitfire
• Range: Decreased
• Drastically reduce spawning in Lvl. 3 camps*

Volcano
• HP: Decreased
• Size: Decreased
• No longer spawns in Lvl. 3 camps*

Plus a lot of changes to smooth out difficulties below 6.
* Lvl 3 camps are usually right behind the T3/T4 camp; Lvl 4 camps are the row behind Lvl.3; Lvl. 5 is always the last row


• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official PvP Rookie Contest#2 Clashes of Swords - Today
The Rookie Tournament is happening today! It will be accessible for all beginning players who are interested in improving their skills or being more involved with the competitive side of the community. View more information and sign-up

• NEW - Official 2p rPvE Contest#3 Last Resort - UNTIL 30-04-2022
The rPvE event consists of teams of two going up against the map of the month on difficulty 2 to 6. They will be playing beside a set condition where they're not allowed to use spells or buildings but only units! View more information and sign-up

• ONGOING - The PvP League - Phase II
The league will consist of small groups (divisions) of about 8 players who will fight each other, one opponent per week. The season ends when everyone played everyone in the group, after which people will get promoted or demoted to match opponents of equal skills again. New players are encouraged to join as well! View more information and sign-up

• FINISHED - Official PvE Contest#5: They See Me Walkin', They Hatin'
Players had to complete Convoy on "Advanced Difficulty" while only using pure coloured decks, therefore limiting them from using mixed oriented cards! View more information and sign-up

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• Active Bounties

A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize, and we will reward everyone who applies with a serious attempt with a participation reward as well. A bounty is not a classic contest, and will run until the task is complete. We will give a heads-up when the entries are about to be closed (at least two weeks in advance). View more information on Active bounties.
 
• OPEN - Spring Forge Bounty
Spring Forge Bounty is an opportunity for the community to have full engagement with the next upcoming Forge. This allows everyone to submit a possible design for how they would like the Forge to look!
A tutorial has been provided to assist and help the community take its first steps for doing so!

• Team Changes

Welcome Friendly Firefly! He's our new 2D Artist! He will be aiming towards working on backgrounds as well as icons for the game and more!
Welcome LamonChan! He's one of our new Tool Developers. He will be aiming towards working on a variety of our tools to optimize the performance and experience for user interactions.
We are always seeking additional help towards the project. Please help yourself to our open positions and If you see anything of interest, then feel free to apply! 
 
• We Need Your Help

This section may come along various times, however we are doing it to visit or even revisit what's important to make this community and game prosper with more development and progression! Please feel free to take a look at our Open Positions to see where you can possibly help out!
 
• Open Position - Balance Developer
As a balance developer, you are responsible to implement design changes to in-game cards using our internal balancing tool. In other words, you are responsible to implement new cards and changes to existing cards. These implementation requests can come from balance updates and content patches from our Faction Designers, but also from the official Skylords Reborn map making team (for example, new bosses for a new map). An integral part of this role is learning our internal balancing tool, as that is the tool that allows us to perform all these changes. You are by no means required to have any programming experience. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Video Editor
As a video editor, you are responsible for creating exciting video content for Skylords Reborn. This can range from short card reveal videos to exciting trailers and cutting up Twitch-stream content for highlight videos on our YouTube channel. If you have any experience with audio post-production, you can also help us out with the process of adding new voice-lines and sound effects into the game. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Game Client Developer
As a game client developer, you are responsible to maintain and develop the game client. This mostly includes add new pre-game features (content outside of matches, so no game mechanics) through .pak files used by the game. You will be responsible to create and design in-game interfaces for new features, add networking support for new features that require it, solve bugs etc. using LUA, XML and little bit of Rust. BattleForge uses LUA and XML in their .pak files, which are loaded by the client. Communication with the server happens through a proxy written in Rust. Read more and apply.
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: LATE-APRL-EART-HDAY
The code is valid until 14th May 2022, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #21

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!



• Teaser rPvE Nature

As decided (quite overwhelmingly) by vote, Nature will follow up Fire and be the next faction to become available as a new rPvE enemy.
We are still in the early stages of both design and balance, so it will still take quite a while before you can fight your way through a new challenge, but we wanted to give you a little teaser of what to expect. 


• Expectation management

For these community updates, we always carefully decide what to share with the public already. We aim to strike the right balance between giving an insight into what we are working on while not giving false expectations about their expected release. When deciding on what to share, our rule of thumb is that it should be something that is definitely happening, even if it might still take quite a while.
For example, Wasteland Terror and PvP Happy Hours are still happening, although in hindsight we probably revealed them too soon. Another example would be the Tower Deepdive from the last community update. This has lead to multiple questions expecting these changes to hit the server soon, even though we are still in early iterations. In this case, the reason we shared the Deepdive already was to let the community join into the discussion and provide feedback about our intended changes.
In other cases, we are sometimes just excited about what we are working on and want to share them with you already! We hope you are patient while we work on our next patch, even if it will probably not include Nature rPvE already. Rest assured that we are hard at work on other exciting things though! 
 
• New artwork reveal

On the day of our previous community update, SpiritAlpha has joined the team as a 2D artist. Since then, he has been hard at work and we can already show you two pieces of his artwork. The first is our new art for the Banzai Birds, spawned from our new card Banzai Lord. Since the card is quite popular, we felt the birds deserved a proper artwork, instead of a recolor of the old artwork. 
                   
The second artwork is an icon for Stronghold's new ability "Bombardment", as mentioned in our Tower Deepdive. Bombardment will become an active ability with a power cost and a long cooldown. It deals area of effect damage with knockback and has a long range to enable Stronghold to counter siege units on its own.
Icons will be quite small in the game, but we still like the details that went into this one. We plan to add more icons to other missing abilities, like Thug's and Lost Shade's Unity buff, so look forward to those!
 
• New tools for new players

Skylords Reborn is an awesome game, but it can be quite hard to get the grasp of it when you are starting out. Various community members have been trying to help newer players get started or improve, including a recently started tutoring program.
• NEW - Volin's Random Rushhour
Every Thursday, Volin hosts a new stream series focused on helping players improve in rPvE. Every week covers different topics, and of course players are encouraged to ask questions and interact. Follow Volin on Twitch, or keep an eye on the stream-channel on our Discord to be notified when the stream starts. 

• NEW - Workshops
The recently started community project REBORN hosts special workshops for new players looking for guidance. In these workshops, you get supported by a mentor guiding you through various topics like deck building, spawn mechanics, power management and of course gameplay. You will get helpful feedback from participants and mentors and get advice on your deck and applying the knowledge on the battleground with one of the mentors. The workshops are not a lecture and one-sided, you are highly encouraged to openly engage in discussions with the mentors. The workshops take place every Sunday, if you are interested, be sure to sign-up. 


• PvP - Toggy's Fightclub
Every Wednesday, Toggy hosts a PvP Fightclub, where players can train and get commentary on their matches. Whether you are a veteran PvP player wanting to put on a show or a new player in need of some helpful feedback, Fightclub is where you want to be. Starting around 18:30 CET every Wednesday, you can watch the Fightclub live on Twitch, while joining the games in the sparring lobby. You are encouraged to spectate and join the fun! Follow Toggy on Twitch, or keep an eye on the stream-channel on our Discord to be notified when Fightclub starts. 

Need more help on PvP? Be sure to check out the Tutor and Apprentice Discord, and the PvP guide written by two of the best PvP players; RadicalX and Hirooo. 

• Patreon update

Skylords Reborn is being worked on by a team of volunteers. The game is free to play, and we do not make any profit of it. We have been able to pay for our server through the donation of generous Patrons, and our current savings are high enough to support server upkeep costs for years to come. Since we are currently not allowed to spend money on other areas (like marketing), we decided to put the Patreon donations on pause. Should this situation change, we will open it up again.
Thank you so much for supporting Skylords Reborn over the years!
 
• Skylords Reborn Wallpapers

Now that the Patreon is not available anymore, we have decided to release our previously Patreon exclusive wallpapers to the public. Our former artist ArtRhino has created 38 great wallpapers with a new take on various units, spells, buildings and area's in the game. You might have seen some of them already during our stream or as banners for the Community Update. Now you can look at them in all of their glory and tell that coworker glancing at your screen about our great game! 
You can find all the wallpapers here.

 
• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Community Map Challenge #4: “Lyr’s Distress Call” - UNTIL 21st February 2022
Dallarian has hosted another winter themed event! The event will be run on a brand new one-player community map, “Aeglos Fortress”. Complete the map with a few restrictions and win some prizes! Be sure to check it out, since there are also prizes for the less experienced players. 

• FINISHED - Official 2p rPvE Contest#2: The Bandit Alliance
We were looking for the fastest time with only one rule: each player could only spawn one single unit with ground presence through the whole run!
You can rewatch the stream and find out the winners on our official twitch channel. 
 
• SOON™ - PvP League
Some exciting news for our PvP players. Toggy is hard at work on creating a PvP league, where players can compete against opponents from the same skill level over the duration of multiple weeks. More info in the coming weeks! 

• Host your own event / tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• Team changes

Our team has seen quite a few changes in the past weeks. 
Pascal has left the team as our Lead Moderator. Dutchy will take over his role and is our new Lead Moderator. 
Our Global Moderators DragonOfTime and Lontzek have also left the moderation team. To fill in these spots, Dallarian and Naturee are our new Global Moderators. 
We would like to thank each of them for their contributions. Moderation has always been a very important part of the Skylords Reborn project, and we wouldn't have the community we have now without their help! 
As mentioned above, SpiritAlpha has joined the team as 2D-artist, working alongside Tweeto to add new artwork into the game. 
Lastly, Killbuster has joined the PvP taskforce. He helped us greatly with the testing process while providing very constructive feedback and suggestions.
 

• We need your help

Unfortunately, we currently do not have enough volunteers to continue implementing any further voice lines and sound effects into the game.
Now that we are able to implement voice lines and audio into the game (thanks to some great voice actors helping us out!), we are looking for someone to help us with audio post-production and quality control.
• Open Position: Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voice lines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Click here to read more and apply.
 
We are also still looking for a new Community Manager, who can help us with these Community Updates. If you are interested or have any questions, please reach out to us. 
• Open Position - Community Manager
As a community manager, you are responsible with aiding the communication to and from the community. You will work closely with the Project Coordinator (previously Community Manager) to communicate staff and project decisions to the community through, for example, The Community Updates and self-written announcements. Furthermore, you will act as a contact person for the community to share project feedback and suggestions and are expected to keep the staff informed and be up-to-date with the state of the community. Click here to read more and apply.

• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S19B
The code is valid till March 12th, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deepdives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #18

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• New Card Reveal: Transcendence

We are hard at work on our new content patch, which will come with balance changes for both PvE and PvP, bugfixes, QoL features and new cards! Stay tuned for more information on the features and release date.   
We are excited to reveal one of the upcoming new cards today; the first Amii spell Transcendence!

Transcendence is a tier 4 spell for Nature/Shadow. Upgrading the card reduces its cooldown and increases its duration, the values noted here are for U3. It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. 

This new Amii spell has a different effect, depending on if you cast it on an enemy or own unit:
Kenosis
Target own unit takes 100% more damage and deals 75% less damage. Friendly units within a 25m radius around it deal 50% more damage and benefit 50% more from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Tyranny
Target enemy unit deals 100% more damage and takes 75% less damage. Enemy units within a 25m radius around it deal 25% less damage and benefit 50% less from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
The effect of Transcendence expires if the target of the spell dies. This results in a spell that provides a powerful buff or debuff as long as you keep its target alive, rewarding careful management of the fight. 
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 
 
• Artwork

Once again the artwork has been created by our artist Tweeto. It went through multiple iterations and we are very happy with the result! 

The artwork is actually based on the Altar of Chaos wallpaper from Nano.
Here you can see an early concept:

 
• We Need Your Help

We hate to sound like a broken record, but there are currently multiple positions open that greatly delay or prevent further development of Skylords Reborn. Please take a look at our open positions to see where you can help. Below are three positions highlighted. 
 
• Open Position - Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voice lines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Community Manager
As a community manager, you are responsible with aiding the communication to and from the community. You will work closely with the Project Coordinator (previously Community Manager) to communicate staff and project decisions to the community through, for example, The Community Updates and self-written announcements. Furthermore, you will act as a contact person for the community to share project feedback and suggestions, and are expected to keep the staff informed and be up-to-date with the state of the community. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Game Client Developer
As a game client developer, you are responsible to maintain and develop the game client. This mostly includes add new pre-game features (content outside of matches, so no game mechanics) through .pak files used by the game. You will be responsible to create and design in-game interfaces for new features, add networking support for new features that require it, solve bugs etc. using LUA, XML and little bit of Rust. BattleForge uses LUA and XML in their .pak files, which are loaded by the client. Communication with the server happens through a proxy written in Rust. Read more and apply.
 
• New Legends (Lore)

We hope most of you are aware of the Chronicle book, that can be selected on the top menu. The tabs [World], [Plot] and [Legends] contain interesting story points and lore that explore the world of Nyn. Every campaign map has an epilogue, and quite a few important story points happen outside the actual game.

While you are browsing through the Chronicle book, be sure to take a look at the Skylords Reborn feature [Cosmetics], that was added to the game during our anniversary patch! We noticed a lot of people overlooked this feature when it was released. 

 
With the help of the community on our Lore Discord, we are expanding on the lore by adding new Legends pages for various units. Below is an example of the upcoming Legends page for Snapjaws, written by Metauriel. You can expect more of these lore entries for other units to be added into the game with our next content patch. We hope you look forward to them!

"Like the entirety of these catacombs, the grand chamber reeked of death. On the far side stood a tall, obsidian statue that radiated an aura of fear and awe. Wings sprouted from its back, no less than six horns from its head, and it was wreathed in clouds of smoke that almost concealed the bones littering the floor around it. Stepping into the room, I crouched to investigate the bones. They were diluted by some dark substance. It wasn’t blood, for when I touched it, I could feel it sap my strength. That was when I heard them. No voices, but a cackling and murmuring of a hundred jaws, shifting all around me. I raised my lantern, and that was when I saw them. Hundreds of eyes glinting in the flickering light. Thousands of teeth, dribbling darkness. A swarm of floating creatures, trailing smoke, gasping for their meal."
- Journals of a Witchhunter, pt. 6
 


• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official 1 Player  rPvE Contest#3 The Minimalistic Firewatch - Difficulty 7 - Until 17th March 2022
An exciting new event for all kind of players! In this event you have to beat the map of the month on difficulty 7 but with an interesting twist: use as few cards as possible! There are multiple leagues so you can choose your difficulty level, ranging from 15 cards to only 3. More information and sign-up.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #3 - You think this game looks good? 
CCC#3 offered a competition of a totally different kind. This time Kapo moved away from speedrunning, away from maps, even away from playing. For this contest you had to share the best screenshot you could create. As with all CCC, the number of participants unlocked a reward for the whole community, so be sure to grab your mini-booster scratch code if you haven't already! The winners will be revealed soon.

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 

• Team Changes

Cocofang and Xanatoss have joined the team as balance developers. They will help us with implementing PvE and PvP changes, as well as adding new cards into the game. We are very glad to have them, since this is an area of game development that greatly benefits from more help. If you are interested in joining them and help speed up our progress, please click here.
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: AMII-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until April 2nd, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 
 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #19

Thank you very much for these updates! 
And the new artwork from SpiritAlpha does look amazing. 
For me it's perfectly fine if you guys share upcoming stuff early - in the case of the tower rework I like that you are involving the community and opinions on discord 😉

Thank you very much for these updates! 
And the new artwork from SpiritAlpha does look amazing. 
For me it's perfectly fine if you guys share upcoming stuff early - in the case of the tower rework I like that you are involving the community and opinions on discord 😉

Thank you very much for these updates! 
And the new artwork from SpiritAlpha does look amazing. 
For me it's perfectly fine if you guys share upcoming stuff early - in the case of the tower rework I like that you are involving the community and opinions on discord 😉

A suggestion for Event Organizers and devs in regard to Community Challenges.
Even with the small sample size we have today, it becomes apparent that Community Maps are not something everyone is familiar with. For Community Challenges with Community Maps such as CCC#2 and Dallarians “Lyr’s Distress Call” is this an additional hurdle to reach players - no matter how well the event is managed.
I suggest an additional location for Community Challenges (very well illustrated below in orange (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ ). It would host the current Community Challange, be it a Community Map or any specific cPvE or rPvE setting. With the difficulty preset, nothing can go wrong and it would be the least effort required for any player to join.
The addition of a custom Leaderboard which can be hidden or shown during the event (depending on the event leader) could be a future expansion to this feature. It could also be used to extract replays directly which would further reduce the steps required for a player to take part in the challenge.
Feel free to chip in expansions or adjustments as well as your thoughts on this idea.
Regards,
Myno

Edit 1: The Icon could change its apperance according to the max human player amount of the active map. 

Hi, I think it would be nice to see how many players that are in the pvp-channel are actually searching for a game. A small Icon next to the player-name on the top-right would be nice.

I honestly play this card in one of my fun decks. You just use matter mastery on the central tower of a camp and then press whatever shortkey you got for the frontier keep(red aff) ability. It might not be meta since the frontier keep is expensive and it does not really shine that much if the match is short, but it surely is efective enough to be played.
I would maybe not digg the change you are proposing since it would mess with my strat quite a lot tbh...mattermastery + frontier keep ability + plus homesoil and if you want to then shrine of martyrs. not ultra-awesome, but still fun to do...but making it a bit cheaper should be okay. the price is really quite high..but i am not some pro who would be able to name a number which is not op but still good.

Greetings Skyfolk!
This update is a small content update with various bug fixes, enjoy!
Check out our recent community update for more information. Feedback to these changes can be given in this topic or on Discord!
Where are balance changes discussed?
For now we have a Discord server dedicated for this. An invite link to the server: https://discord.gg/NvSUwpf

How can I join the test server?
To join the test server you simply need to launch LauncherTest.exe located in your BattleForge installation folder. It is important you run the updater first, so you download the latest test server files. In the future we plan to make it easier to join the test server.

Changes
Add a new Winterforge theme! You can change your theme in the forge menu. Seasonal: The forge will automatically adjust based on the season of the year. Legacy: The old forge you know and love. Winter: The new cool and frosty winter forge.
Update booster images so they are more consistent.
Add new and less strict filter options for advanced filtering! A new filter is "edition" and many other keywords got alternative names now. Add work-in-progress documentation for the advanced filters under "Battleforge/docs/advanced_filtering.txt". Add a new "StartBattleforgeDev.bat" alongside the Battleforge.exe. It allows you to enable experimental language switching on the test server: CTRL + D => Display German Language CTRL + E => Display English Language CTRL + F => Display French Language CTRL + R => Display Russian Language Add milliseconds of replays to the replays window. Now a notification will pop-up whenever one of your friends logs in! Add the Fireland preset in the map editor. Add upgrades for the new cards from the anniversary patch: Add Banzai Lord (Green) and (Purple) on all difficulties to Mo. Add Coat of Protection (Blue) and (Purple) on all difficulties to Empire. Add Amii Paladins on all difficulties to Nightmare's End. Add Bandit Minefield on all difficulties to Slave Master. Add Bandit Sniper on all difficulties to Raven's End. Add new config value to allow randomization of card order in boosters. You can enable it in the "Documents/BattleForge/config.json" file by setting "randomize_cards_in_booster" to true in the "ui" section. In the future we will make this configurable in the ingame UI.

Fixes
Banzai Bird (spawned by Banzai Lord): The unit now will die properly when targetting boss units. Amii Phantom is not invisible anymore on lower texture settings. Properly disable ranked queue button, if you are already searching for a match. Players now cannot queue up twice anymore. Use correct booster image for Bandit edition in booster history. It previously was using the Twilight edition image. Fix crash when Howling Shrine is placed in the map editor. Fix crash associated with Molten Golem in fire rPvE (IncomingDamageDistribution ability). Do not play sounds while the game is minimized. Charge cards in the upgrade menu will now be correctly displayed. The scroll postion in the upgrade inventory will now update correctly. Newly selected free PvP decks are now immediately visible. You do not have to relog anymore. Automatically assigned names of free PvP decks will now not exceed the deck name limit of 16 characters anymore.  
Thanks for reading up until the end! See you in the forge!

Beginners Guide for Disinterest in Skylords Economy
Or: How to not get screwed over by your own mistakes, the market, or other players
 
Skylords Reborn – a wonderful piece of RTS gaming – but also a Trading Card Game with market mechanics. Some enjoy the economic aspects a lot – but maybe you don't. This guide is as short as possible and gives you simple tips of what you should do and what to avoid.
If you just want to play the game, make progress and have fun, this guide is for you.
 
Check prices: When buying or selling something over a certain limit – lets say 100 or 200 BFP – check the median price first. You don't need to memorize anything, use www.smj.cards (courtesy of [GM] Maze). Sometimes cheap cards are on temporary low supply and sold for outrageous prices. You only know what's going on if you check the price beyond the lowest market buyout.
  Sell Boosters: One way to ensure progress is to stay away from the gambling machine. You might end up losing several BFP, or you might win big – but that's especially a bigger risk for someone who is just starting out. For a casual player, staying even also has a downside: selling cards takes time too, and that's time not spent playing the game itself.
  Plan ahead: As a beginner, select one or two factions/decks you want to put your resources into and stick to them. Don't pump all your resources into fire cards and lose interest the next day. Cycling through your resources usually means losing some amount of BFP.
  High value - buy on chat, sell on market: On very expensive cards (>500 or 1000 BFP), take some time and buy them on the chat. Bartering can save you a lot – demand a healthy discount, otherwise you could buy from the market anyway. Selling expensive cards goes the other way around, just put them up on the market.
  Reforge right: The Reforge can be a powerful tool, but don't put random cards into it. To keep it simple and if you don't want to learn the exact mechanics, just put 4 of the exact same cards in, and you will be fine. Just be sure to never trash something of value.
  Be patient: This is the hardest part – many already mentioned points revolve around the ability to wait if the situation isn't right. You don't have to wait to sell a card for months – just don't sell it while it's at the very bottom. When buying a card you really NEED for a deck to play right now, you can make conscious exceptions for this, but moving fast almost always means losing BFP.  
Hopefully it helps new players with disinterest in economy a bit. If you have some additional tips for beginners and people who want to participate in the market as little as possible, just suggest them and I will add them here:
 
Have fun: Even though the advice above is sound, don't force yourself to optimize too much. For example, if you have fun opening Boosters, just do it, especially while you are still exploring what cards exist and what factions you may or may not like.
  Stay Updated: Skylords Reborn is in constant development, there is a regular forum post of changes that also contains a free Booster code. Official streams or videos usually come with codes too.
 

Kubik and me worked out a solution that was also applied with
The damage value now applies correctly and the overflow no longer gets multiplied by Tainted Enrage or Unholy Hero or the likes.
Damage was off only if overflow happened to buildings. Damage to Units done remains the same pre and post changes. That should only affect Units with the Stampede ability. like Mo, Bloodhorn, Juggernaut.

There are cards that always give me a strong nostalgia trip when I see them (on the wiki, in the booklet, ingame, etc.)
I'm curious if anyone else has a strong connection to an art, or perhaps a memory of the first BF card they ever saw.
For me it's Parasite Swarm. It was the card I was most intrigued by when I just got the game. The game came with 3000 bfp back then, and it might even have been my first purchase from those points. Everytime I see it (for example, today in the cardlist), I get a trip down memory lane and a happy battleforge-is-awesome-feeling 😄 

What about you?

And merged, so it will go out with next patch for the main server, I guess UI will not be ready by then, so in config.json in section "ui", add "randomize_cards_in_booster" with value true, and be surprised when when it starts working 🙂

🤔 to me personally it sound stupid to not have them in defined order, but designers seems to like to have it as an option, so here is an preview:

Hello Skylords!
While I´ve heard that there is a defensive rPvE in the making (looking very much forward to that!), I think the more gamemodes there are, the better! So I´d also like to suggest a new different random PvE mode that could be a lot fun.
My Idea is that the monuments in the map are more randomly spread - unlike the current rPvE where you have to clear only one camp until reaching the next orb.
So in the map there could be 3 camps until you reach T2, then 4 or 5 camps between T2 and T3, and then 2 bigger camps between T3 and T4. Or even almost all camps before you reach T4 - it should be random, because it´s random PvE! This would encourage more creative deckbuilding a lot i think.
There should be a minimum amount of like 3 camps between the orb-clusters, so that every orb-stage has a meaning in your deck.
Now what I´d also like is if each Orb+Well cluster would also have a Wall, directed to another path where no enemie camps are, but where occasionally enemies spawn to attack your orbs. So it would be a mixture between attacking and defending!
Also it would be nice if all teammates start at the same spot. There could still be multiple paths, but all leading to the same orb-cluster at some point.
(What could be cool if there are multiple paths is, if there could be some cliffs in between - where enemie archers stand on. You could then choose to take the lower path and try to shoot the archers with your ranged units, or take the upper path and get the archers with your meele units, being then also able to shoot some units from the lower path with your archers)
Another thing that could be cool is, if the enemy camps could be mostly grouped by same-sized units, different size per camp. This might encourage deckbuilding even further and encourage the player to build a deck with all unit-counter types.
 
Now I don´t know if any of this would be technical possible, but I think this could be a lot of fun to play. And I think the game needs some more gamemodes to keep the players engaged, as I see many players only playing for a short period of time until leaving again.
 
Please tell me what you think. Have a nice day!

Hello Skylords!
While I´ve heard that there is a defensive rPvE in the making (looking very much forward to that!), I think the more gamemodes there are, the better! So I´d also like to suggest a new different random PvE mode that could be a lot fun.
My Idea is that the monuments in the map are more randomly spread - unlike the current rPvE where you have to clear only one camp until reaching the next orb.
So in the map there could be 3 camps until you reach T2, then 4 or 5 camps between T2 and T3, and then 2 bigger camps between T3 and T4. Or even almost all camps before you reach T4 - it should be random, because it´s random PvE! This would encourage more creative deckbuilding a lot i think.
There should be a minimum amount of like 3 camps between the orb-clusters, so that every orb-stage has a meaning in your deck.
Now what I´d also like is if each Orb+Well cluster would also have a Wall, directed to another path where no enemie camps are, but where occasionally enemies spawn to attack your orbs. So it would be a mixture between attacking and defending!
Also it would be nice if all teammates start at the same spot. There could still be multiple paths, but all leading to the same orb-cluster at some point.
(What could be cool if there are multiple paths is, if there could be some cliffs in between - where enemie archers stand on. You could then choose to take the lower path and try to shoot the archers with your ranged units, or take the upper path and get the archers with your meele units, being then also able to shoot some units from the lower path with your archers)
Another thing that could be cool is, if the enemy camps could be mostly grouped by same-sized units, different size per camp. This might encourage deckbuilding even further and encourage the player to build a deck with all unit-counter types.
 
Now I don´t know if any of this would be technical possible, but I think this could be a lot of fun to play. And I think the game needs some more gamemodes to keep the players engaged, as I see many players only playing for a short period of time until leaving again.
 
Please tell me what you think. Have a nice day!

Hello Skylords!
While I´ve heard that there is a defensive rPvE in the making (looking very much forward to that!), I think the more gamemodes there are, the better! So I´d also like to suggest a new different random PvE mode that could be a lot fun.
My Idea is that the monuments in the map are more randomly spread - unlike the current rPvE where you have to clear only one camp until reaching the next orb.
So in the map there could be 3 camps until you reach T2, then 4 or 5 camps between T2 and T3, and then 2 bigger camps between T3 and T4. Or even almost all camps before you reach T4 - it should be random, because it´s random PvE! This would encourage more creative deckbuilding a lot i think.
There should be a minimum amount of like 3 camps between the orb-clusters, so that every orb-stage has a meaning in your deck.
Now what I´d also like is if each Orb+Well cluster would also have a Wall, directed to another path where no enemie camps are, but where occasionally enemies spawn to attack your orbs. So it would be a mixture between attacking and defending!
Also it would be nice if all teammates start at the same spot. There could still be multiple paths, but all leading to the same orb-cluster at some point.
(What could be cool if there are multiple paths is, if there could be some cliffs in between - where enemie archers stand on. You could then choose to take the lower path and try to shoot the archers with your ranged units, or take the upper path and get the archers with your meele units, being then also able to shoot some units from the lower path with your archers)
Another thing that could be cool is, if the enemy camps could be mostly grouped by same-sized units, different size per camp. This might encourage deckbuilding even further and encourage the player to build a deck with all unit-counter types.
 
Now I don´t know if any of this would be technical possible, but I think this could be a lot of fun to play. And I think the game needs some more gamemodes to keep the players engaged, as I see many players only playing for a short period of time until leaving again.
 
Please tell me what you think. Have a nice day!

There is a longstanding bug in the calculation of AOE (area of effect) damage, affecting spells, unit abilities and unit attacks which have a max damage per target and max overall damage. Examples of affected spells are Eruption or Fire Sphere, abilities like Rifle Cultists' Dark Grenade or AOE attacks of units like Construct, Frost Mage or Deepcoil Worm.
TL;DR at the bottom!
 
How the bug works:
If an AOE damage effect kills a unit, only 50% of the overkill damage is transferred back to the pool of available damage which is to be distributed to other targets.
Let's take Fire Sphere (u3) as an example. The spell has a maximum single target damage of 6000 and a maximum total damage of 8000. As it stands, the spell will only ever do its full damage if its primary target (closest to the area of effect center) has at least 6000, and its second target has at least 2000 health.
If you use Fire Sphere on a group of weaker enemies, it's effectiveness will vastly diminish. Let's take for example a group of 8 Sunderers (u3), which have exactly 1000 HP each, for a total of 8000 HP. Fire Sphere will kill 3 of them, and damage a fourth Sunderer for 375 damage, leaving him with 625 HP. Total damage dealt: 3375. It would get even worse for lower health targets.

Why does it happen? Because of faulty calculation in the damage formula, which returns only 50% of overkill damage to the pool of remaining damage.
So what's the maths behind it?
Before: max single target damage = 6000, damage in pool = 8000
Target 1: health = 1000, damage dealt = 6000, overkill damage = 5000, damage returned to pool = 2500, remaining damage in pool = 4500
Target 2: health = 1000, damage dealt = 4500, overkill damage = 3500, damage returned to pool = 1750, remaining damage in pool = 1750
Target 3: health = 1000, damage dealt = 1750, overkill damage = 750, damage returned to pool = 375, remaining damage in pool = 375
Target 4: health = 1000, damage dealt = 375, health remaining = 625
 
Is it a bug, or is it a feature?
That's a non-trivial question. But so far, there is every indication that this is in fact a bug.
1. There is no indication whatsoever in the spell descriptions, especially the big AOE spells like Fire Sphere, that they massively lose effectiveness against groups of enemies, or that they deal only half damage to further targets.
2. Against a heterogenous group of enemies, the total damage dealt varies greatly, depending on which target was closest to the spell center, thus in which orders the targets are affected.
3. Logic dictates, that there is no reason for an explosion to lose effectiveness (as in: deal less overall damage) the more viable targets are affected.
4. Increasing "maximum single target damage" reduces the overall damage dealt by the spells, if they are used against groups of enemies, to a point where Lava Field sometimes deals more overall damage than Fire Sphere. How does that make sense?
 
What's the proposed bugfix/change?
To enable full overkill damage overflow. As in, if the single target damage is 6000, and the target has only 1000 health, let 5000 damage return to the remaining damage pool.
 
Using the example above again, that's 8 dead Sunderers for a total of 8000 damage and a happy, fulfilled Fire Sphere.

 
Can it be implemented easily?
We've been hard at work and testing with Kubik (who's effort and insight are massively appreciated!), and the relevant code already exists, ready to be implemented. It also is easily adjustable, should it turn out that another value, like a 75%, or 80% damage carryover on overkillis the sweet spot.
 
What will change if the bugfix is implemented?
Every AOE spell, ability and attack, which has a listed damage per target and maximum damage will be affected by this change. However, the degree to which it will have an impact, varies greatly from one case to another. For most cards, especially with low damage numbers, the increase will be negligible (not JUST because these are low numbers, but primarily because those spells/attacks have a low chance to kill a target with any given shot).
Generally, the bugfix is a direct buff to many cards and abilities. However, damage is only actually increased if 1. at least one of the targets is killed, 2. there are more viable targets in range than (total_damage / max_singletarget_damage) rounded up. Also, to be clear, damage is NEVER going to be increased for the primary target
Spells which are affected the most, are spells which have high enough numbers, that they are expected to reliably kill some, or most of their targets. The greater the single target maximum damage of the AOE damage source, and the greater single target maximum damage in relation to total maximum damage, the more any given spell/attack/ability is affected. Also, spells/attacks/abilities which have a larger AOE and the above characteristics, tend to be affected more (because more targets fit into the AOE).
 
My predictions concerning the impact on specific cards:
High impact: Fire Sphere, Rifle Cultists* (ability: Dark Grenade), Boom Brothers* (ability: Boom), Necro Fury* (ability: Bone Shards), Altar of Chaos (against really large groups), Worldbreaker Gun (attack and ability: Heavy Snowball, though the latter only against really large groups), Shatter Ice, Comet Catcher (against really large groups).
* - Unholy Hero increases the impact
Moderate impact: Construct (attack), Giant Wyrm (attack), Ironclad (attack), Wasteland Terror (attack), Abomination (ability: Blessed/Tainted Fury), Skycatcher (attack), Gemeye (attack), Volcano (attack), Artillery (attack), Hatecaster (attack), Deepgorge (attack), Thornbark (rooted attack), Treefiend (rooted attack), Lost Horror (attack), Soulshatter (>3 targets), Backlash (depending on void power, may be low impact), Corpse Explosion (>3 targets), Morklay Trap, Shadow Phoenix (>4 targets), Lost dancer (ability: Necro explosion, only with lots of targets in range), Nasty Surprise (>3 targets), Necroblaster (attack, and shadow affinity ability: Tainted Voodoo).
Low impact: Magma Hurler (attack), Sun Reaver (ability: Metal Spikes), Deepcoil Worm (attack), Twilight Bombard (attack), Lost Disruptor (attack, moderate impact against grouped very low health fliers), Shadow Mage, Eruption (>3 targets).
 
My predictions concerning the impact on PVP balance:
(I am not an active PVP player currently. I did play a decent amount in times of Battleforge, but I am in no way up to date, so take these predictions with a grain of salt).
Shadow will slightly gain in power, as the explosions have actually high enough damage numbers to reliably kill at least some of their targets, but except for Shadow Mage, it only ever becomes relevant when there are >3 targets in range of the spell/ability. The slight buff to Eruption shouldn't have an impact. Otherwise I expect nothing much to change. The vast majority of significantly affected cards are T4.
 
My predictions concerning the impact on PVE:
Enemies: Long range AOE attackers, like Bandit walkers and high tier defensive towers (e.g. artillery) will be more proficient at murdering grouped units.
Players: Stronger tools of destruction at player disposal. It should only really affect T4, and shadow at lower tiers (Shadow Phoenix in particular should be noticeably more effective against large groups, Necroblaster will get stronger, Corpse explosion and Soulshatter will also be noticeably more effective).
 
Final thoughts:
I was for a long time under the impression, that large AOE damage sources are somehow underperforming, without really understanding why. Fire Sphere! Enormous explosion! Which... kills 3-4 units out of a cluster of 15 units. Now that I found out why those spells underperform, I've taken the effort to try and fix it. That's the result. I consider it a bugfix, even though it is also a moderately impactful balance change. That's how Skylords Reborn, and earlier Battleforge, handled AOE damage. A bug that had largely become a feature. I propose we change it in a logical way. Maximum 8000 damage in the area? If the targets in range have as much overall health, the damage will be dealt in full.
 
Special thanks:
Kubik, for his unending patience and making the unreadable mess of code actually parsable for the human mind.
 
TL;DR:
High tier AOE spells and abilities promise big numbers. Against lots of small targets, numbers are much smaller, because overkill damage is halved (multiple times). The proposed change fixes stuff, so that big spells deal the promised damage. Fire Sphere -> big boom -> big damage -> lots of dead bandits. Vote big damage. Vote dead bandits!

Today we are proud to present you some more small additions, which we had to delay for a bit!

General changes
- Added voice lines for Amii Paladins.
- Added voice lines for Banzai Lord.
- Allow players to play lower upgrade levels of cards from the card upgrade window.